The Unmaking of June Farrow

May 1, 2023

June Farrow of Jasper, NC, wants to rise above the curse that's shadowed her family for generations, which eventually drove her mother from home--and out of her mind. Digging through her town's troubling past, June comes to a mysterious door whose threshold she crosses at her risk; though she senses her own mind slipping, she realizes that she could change both past and present and find true love. From the New York Times best-selling author of Spells for Forgetting. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 25, 2023
The latest from Young (Spells for Forgetting) is a lush if mind-boggling time-travel story set in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. June, a 30-something flower farmer in the present day, fears her family’s “curse” has caught up with her. She has “episodes” during which her sense of reality breaks down, and she sees a cigarette-smoking man intently watching her. One day, she comes across a red door in the middle of a field and opens it. She then finds herself transported to 1951, where she meets young farmer Eamon, who claims she’s his wife and is angry that she deserted him and their four-year-old daughter, Annie, a year earlier. The confrontation with Eamon prompts her to have flashes of memory of their marriage, and as she explores this mysterious past, she discovers that her present-day life is tangled with the 1950 disappearance of her mother and the murder of a minister. While the time-traveling plot can be unnecessarily complex and full of seemingly arbitrary rules, the relationship between June and Eamon is touching and the mystery intriguing and suspenseful. Readers will root for June as she tries to find where she belongs.

September 1, 2023

Young (Spells for Forgetting) once again blends mystery, magic, and romance in a story that spans time. After the death of her grandmother, June Farrow is the last of her family line, and she intends on keeping that way, since the women in her family all fall mentally ill; some when they're older and some younger. June thinks she's in the latter group, as she has been experiencing hallucinations for the last year. But her certainty that her mental issues are worsening is upended when she receives several cryptic clues that suggest there may be more to her experiences. As June begins to investigate the clues, her own past, and a murder that happened years ago, she has to make a decision: Does she give in to the hallucinations and see where they lead her, or work to stay sane for as long as possible? VERDICT Young weaves these elements together in a seamlessly blended story that is enhanced by the well-crafted setting and nicely drawn characters. Readers who enjoyed Weyward by Emilia Hart will find much to love here.--Jane Jorgenson

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Starred review from September 1, 2023
June Farrow is determined to avoid passing on the curse that has plagued the women of her family for generations, the curse that caused her mother to disappear and her grandmother to disconnect from reality. After her grandmother's death, June receives a mysterious envelope in the mail featuring a photo of a man and a woman, dated 1911--but the woman in the photo is her mother, who was born in the 1960s. Then the red door begins appearing. Encouraged by a second letter, June walks through the door, arriving in 1951, where she stumbles across a man who claims to be her husband. Who is he, and why does he know her so well? Fortunately, there are Farrow women living nearby who are able to share what they know about the family curse--and provide her with the knowledge to break the cycle. Young (Spells for Forgetting, 2022) peppers the story with intriguing clues and unexpected twists that will keep readers guessing, leading to a heart-wrenching and satisfying conclusion. A must-read for fans of V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020), who will be drawn into Young's deeply emotional story of self-discovery, family, and love.

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December 15, 2023
Her grandmother's death sends a North Carolina woman on a quest to discover the truth behind a family secret. June Farrow has always known that the women in her family are cursed to succumb to "madness," as they call it. It's why she's never let herself fall in love, and why she'll never let herself become a mother. She's determined to be the last of the Farrow line. After the death of her beloved grandmother, however, she has to come to terms with the fact that she's been seeing things that aren't there for the better part of a year. As the visions get worse, a letter her grandmother sent before her death with an impossible picture of June's mother (who disappeared soon after June was born) sends June on a journey to investigate what truly happened to her mother and whether she has any hope of saving herself. The setup of this novel is engaging: a missing mother, a family curse, a small town with secrets. Unfortunately, the book is structured so that almost all of its biggest moments--all the reveals and climactic scenes--occur off-screen, with June discovering that they have happened rather than experiencing them herself. The same is true of the requisite romance: Due to the circumstances, June is dropped into a relationship that's been going on for years though she has no memory of it, and all the falling-in-love segments are vague memories, rather than experiences depicted on the page. It's hard to relate to a romance that's told rather than shown. The mystery is intriguing, the characters fun, the prose well done, but the narrative is structured in a way that just doesn't work. An intriguing story with lackluster execution.

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